The impact of distributive and procedural justice on correctional staff job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment

Correctional staff are the heart and soul of any correctional facility. While there was a significant body of research on the impact of the work environment on correctional staff, this study sought to expand that knowledge by examining the effects of distributive and procedural justice on correctional staff job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Multivariate models were estimated. Both forms of organizational justice had negative effects on job stress and organizational commitment; however, only procedural justice, but not distributive justice, had a significant impact on job satisfaction.     

FAMILY/CHILD JUDICIAL DISPUTE RESOLUTION (JDR)

This article outlines the Pilot Project in Pre-trial Judicial Settlement Conferencing in Family and Child Welfare/Protection Matters, which was designed and implemented by the authors, The Honourable Judge Nancy A. Flatters of the Provincial Court of Alberta, Family and Youth Court, at Calgary. The article also outlines the basis, rationale, and development underlying this emerging nontraditional judicial approach to the resolution of these disputes and the resulting settlement outcomes.     

Church,State, Resistance1

This article problematizes a separation of Church and State that is nevertheless identified as constitutive of politics. Democracy has come to manifest a tension between the ‘autonomy’ of the political and a ‘heteronomy’ that, exceeding rationalist or social contractarian accounts of our co‐existence, is here presented as an irreducible affect of our being together. Autonomy, it is argued, resists heteronomy through all representations of democracy; yet, by contrast, heteronomy resists autonomy, and does so with the force of this affect. So if civil religion is impossible – and if we know only too well where its realizations lead: by default, to republican celebration, or by excess, to fascism – then we must take up again, and from scratch, the question of the affect according to which we co‐exist.     

Are We the Walking Dead? Zombie Apocalypse as Liberatory Art

Abstract

Marcuse argued that subversive visions of a better reality can emerge from “low” as well as “high” culture, from within as well as outside the repressive apparatus. This article leverages Marcuse’s aesthetic theory to consider whether the enormously popular AMC cable series, The Walking Dead, might be considered emancipatory art. Set in a post-neoliberal America suffering through a zombie apocalypse, the dark, existential themes and urgent political ambivalences of this series reflect collective yearnings, tensions, and fissures in the current social reality worth attending to. I argue that The Walking Dead does have emancipatory potential, in that it addresses “depth dimension” concerns that occupied Marcuse; reflects disillusionment with core aspects of American neoliberalism; and reaches for less repressive, more life-affirming, alternative political visions. Time will tell if the show will sustain such visions or surrender to the status quo.     

Evaluating the Cultural Fit of an Approach for Practice Model Development for Tribal Child Welfare

Three American Indian tribes utilized Business Process Mapping (BPM) as a tool to develop culturally-based tribal child welfare practice models. This study employed a multi-methods design to evaluate the cultural fit of BPM when used in tribal settings. Findings indicated that although programs considered BPM a “mainstream” intervention, each still found the process to be an effective means of creating models reflecting child welfare practice within tribal cultural contexts. Findings further suggested that BPM can, however, benefit from examination of how it might better articulate cultural values and norms, as well as differences between tribal and mainstream child welfare approaches.     

Partisanship and independence: the peculiar moralism of American politics

Against the background of historical antipartyism in practice and in democratic theory, and with a focus on American political thought, this paper takes issue with contemporary arguments that value the political identity ‘Independent’ and disparage partisanship. A typology of ‘Independent’ is offered and both empirical and moral claims about the superiority of Independent voters are rebutted, with particular focus on the ‘weightlessness’ of Independents. The reasons to appreciate the moral distinctiveness of partisanship for democracy are set out: commitment to political pluralism, to regulated political rivalry, and to shifting responsibility for governing. Inclusiveness, comprehensiveness, and compromisingness set the contours for an ethic of partisanship.     

Mental Health Treatment Experiences and Expectations in Foster Care: A Qualitative Investigation

This study explores perspectives on mental health treatment experiences and expectations for youth in foster care and their foster parents. In-depth interviews were conducted and identified for major themes: (1) the dual stigma of foster care and mental health care; (2) the lack of engagement in mental health therapy; (3) trust issues with the therapist and other individuals; and (4) the desire to integrate mental health services with primary care services. These results have implications for mental health service delivery and suggest opportunities to improve mental health treatment through an integrated care approach.     

Hatred,A Solidification of Meaning

While friend/enemy are commonly perceived to be mutually constitutive opposites, it is not so evident that hatred is the opposite of love. Hatred is oriented by two ideologies specific to European thought—‘nature’ as an illusory universal, and the ‘ego’ (me, moi), distinct from the ‘I’, as an irreducible expression of identity. The origins of racial hatred in naturalised hierarchical classification at the time of European colonial expansion demonstrates how naturalism and egoism combined to produce an over-valuation of one’s own self or group as authentic or pure. Drawing on Pascal, Fanon and Derrida, this essay challenges the autonomous, self-loving and naturalised sense of self. It calls for education as a form of action against racial hatred, including hate-speech. It suggests that the dignity or absoluteness of each individual or group should be thought as a ‘sense’ which cannot be reduced to a meaning. This is in contrast to hatred which presupposes closed or solidified meanings.     

Organizational Learning Facilitators in the Canadian Public Sector

An implicit patriarchal bargain between Emirati fathers and daughters is examined from a social constructionist perspective. Using qualitative methodology we found that fathers explicitly encourage their daughters to pursue tertiary education and careers, but hedge this break from tradition with implicit understandings that daughters will observe norms that can only realistically be followed in public sector employment. The persistent public-private imbalance in female employment patterns can thus be construed, as a ‘wicked problem” that cannot be addressed through market incentive-based policies such as Emiratization but rather through behavioral changes on the part of both UAE businesses and Emirati families.